The King's Justice
Page 26
“Thank you. He’s mentioned you, that you’re his teacher. And you’re patient with him. Kind to him.”
If I’d really been kind, I would have warned him about the link between the feathers and the skeletons. Maggie wanted to tell the woman that everything would be all right—except she knew better than to make promises she couldn’t keep. But she did offer: “Mrs. Tucci, Milo’s my friend. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know. And if you hear anything, please let the Colonel at the Hundred and Seventh know.”
“Of course. Dio ti benedica e ti protegga,” Milo’s mother said, kissing both of Maggie’s cheeks.
Maggie now knew what it meant, a blessing. “Thank you.”
* * *
—
Inside the red telephone booth, Maggie placed a call to Durgin, her hands shaking as she fed coins into the slot. “Milo Tucci never showed up for his shift.”
“What?” Durgin responded. “Maggie?”
“I went to visit the flat he shares with his mother,” she continued, voice cold. “Just like Carmine Basso, his mother was unconcerned, even when we discovered his bag missing.”
“Maggie—we have a witness to a woman throwing a suitcase over the railing of Tower Bridge. We think the suitcase might be alligator. The timing works out with the fake-alligator suitcase the mudlarkers found.”
Maggie felt a wash of rage. “Didn’t I say that the killer could be a woman? And didn’t you explain to me why it couldn’t be?”
“Maggie—”
“I want you to know it was me who tipped off Boris Jones at The Daily Enquirer today. You and Scotland Yard need to brace for the inevitable consequences and public fallout.”
“Maggie—”
“James, if Milo dies,” she said, enunciating each word, “I will blame you.” She slammed down the receiver and made her way to the Tube, to visit the Tower.
* * *
—
When Maggie had finally left the Tuccis’ flat, Milo’s mother let him out of the coat closet, where he had hidden, with his packed suitcase.
“She’s a good person,” Giulia told Milo.
He nodded. “I don’t like lying to people.”
“Of course not.”
“Do you think I’m doing the right thing, Mamma?” he asked, sitting on the sofa.
“You’re a grown man now, Milo. You must decide.”
He sat on the sofa. “I just don’t know—I have a good life here. I love London. I think my work at the Hundred and Seventh is important. And I’m not afraid, not anymore. Or at least, I’m less afraid than I used to be.”
“They took your father,” Giulia said, sitting next to him.
“They did.”
“And if they find out you were actually born in Italy, and not here, they could take you away, too.”
“My papers are good.”
“Your papers are forged. It will only take someone with a sharp eye to figure it out. And then you’ll be in a camp in Scotland, too.”
“I know, I know…”
Giulia rose. “Let me make you something to eat.”
“Mamma—I’m not hungry.”
“Of course you are. And I want to make sure you have one last good meal before you go. Who knows what you’ll have on the ship, in Argentina…”
Milo grinned. “Plenty of steak there, they tell me.”
“Well, I have some nice caponata on the stove. Come.” She kissed the top of his head. “We’ll have one last meal together before it’s time for you to go.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Maggie arrived at Reitter’s cell at the Tower; he was reciting a poem attributed to Anne Boleyn:
Cease now the passing bell,
Rung is my doleful knell,
For the sound my death doth tell,
Death doth draw nigh,
Sound my end dolefully,
For now I die.
“This is the last time I’ll see you, Mr. Reitter.”
“Good afternoon, Maggie. And why the last? After all, we’re just getting to know—”
“Shut. Up.” Maggie’s jaw was clenched, her rage livid. “We’re going to find Greenteeth. With or without you.”
“Well, well, Miss Gelignite.” His scarred face was impassive. “You’re lit up today, aren’t you?”
“A woman was spotted dumping an alligator suitcase into the Thames a few days before a couple of mudlarkers found a similar-looking one filled with bones. Jimmy Greenteeth is really Jenny Greenteeth.”
Outside Reitter’s cell, Maggie began to pace. “So on the way over here, I started thinking, what kind of woman would kill men and leave their skeletons?”
Reitter cocked one eyebrow. “A woman who wants ultimate control. A woman whose mothering instinct has twisted.”
“Let’s stop hiding behind masks, shall we?” Maggie saw something flicker across his face. “What was your relationship like with your mother?”
“Oh, Maggie—how Freudian. ‘The Evil Mother’ who can be blamed for everything?” His voice was smooth, but his remaining eye twitched. “How reductive.”
“I don’t believe in ‘the evil mother.’ I believe in genetics, in biology, in brain damage. But I also believe in childhood abuse and trauma. Tell me what your mother was like.”
Reitter sighed. “She was…perfect. The angel in the house. Until she had to go to work. Then I never saw her again. It was all about them, nothing left for me.”
“Who are ‘them’?”
He was silent. Then, “Her lovers.”
Maggie knew she was getting somewhere. “I think it was more than abandonment. That your mother abused you in some way. Or let you be abused.”
“No.” But his voice was weaker.
“I’ve been reading up on sequential murderers—serial killers—the few we know about. One thing we do know is all of them started out as victims.”
Reitter turned away, toward the window. The afternoon sun passed through the bars, making a pattern on the bare floor. He began to walk in circles, hands clasped behind his back.
“When did the killing start, Nicholas? Surely not with Joanna Metcalf.”
“Started with rats, actually.” He moved to the bed and sat, crossing his legs, facing Maggie. He sucked his teeth. “I’d find them in the traps, still alive, and twist off their heads to kill them. Later I became more inventive. Then came cats, dogs.”
Maggie felt ill, but pressed on. “I saw the letters from your mother—lots of Bible passages.” Reitter snorted. “Did she raise you with any sense of right and wrong?”
“She was strict.”
“How strict? With words? With her hand? With a belt?”
He looked out the window, avoiding her gaze.
“Your first recorded kill is Joanna Metcalf, whom you killed in the manner of Jack the Ripper’s first victim, Mary Ann Nichols. Who was your actual first human victim?”
He looked back at her. “I killed a few beggars and prostitutes before I worked up to the SOE girls,” he said, leaning back. “With so many people missing because of the Blitz, no one even noticed.”
“How did it feel to kill them?”
He inhaled. “I felt sick, disgusted, at first. Especially the first one—that was hard….But I also felt powerful. The more I did it, the more I wondered why I’d never done it before, why I’d waited so long. I was powerful.” He held out his hands, palms up. “I was a god.”
“But you’re not a god, Mr. Reitter. You’re not even all that special, are you?”
He flushed. “You’re clever, Maggie Hope. But you let your detective boyfriend talk you out of your instincts.”
“Is Jenny Greenteeth a goddess, then?”
“Hardly.”
“What makes you say that?” Maggie asked. “She h
asn’t been caught, after all.”
She could hear Durgin’s voice in her head: Women don’t kill in that way—they’re capable of committing only “expressive” violence—an uncontrollable release of bottled-up rage or fear, often as a result of long-term abuse at the hands of males. Women usually murder unwillingly, without premeditation. While the male is built and programmed to destroy, the female nests, creates, and nurtures.
“Not yet.”
Durgin’s wrong. Maggie felt a tingle; she was getting somewhere. “Why do you hate women?”
“I don’t hate all women, just women who deviate from what God intended: being a wife and mother.”
“Why do you hate women?” she repeated.
“It’s so easy to take their dignity when they’re just meat and bones.”
Maggie thought she might gag, but she continued calmly, “That’s not an answer.” Then, “Who tried to take your dignity?”
“Another woman,” he admitted finally. “My father walked out when I was young and my mother had to work. Nellie—Nellie Bowles—took care of me. She was like a witch from a book of fairy tales—no love for either of us, full of rancor and hate, never forgave her daughter for being left, or me for being born. She took her wrath out on me. Called me a worthless bastard like my father and rubbish like my mother.”
And so you learned the world was unjust and uncaring and the only way out was violence. Your experiences skewed what you knew to be normal. Maggie knew she was making progress, but she had to be careful. “Why does your mother send you Bible verses?” He blinked. “To save your soul?”
“Save my life. But then she wins.”
“Wins?”
“Proves she’s better than I.”
“How does she save your life?”
He was silent, staring at his hands.
“It’s time to grow up. No one wins in this scenario. And time is running out.” She snuck a glance at her watch. It was three thirty-seven. Less than twenty-one hours. One thousand two hundred and twenty-three minutes. Seventy-three thousand three hundred and eighty seconds.
“Before I die, I need to protect my legacy.”
“Did your mother punish you?” Maggie felt as if she were defusing a bomb, about to cut a trip wire. Careful. Go slowly.
“I’m flattered by your interest, Maggie. We’re very much alike, you know.”
Really? “And why do you think that?”
“We’re both strong. Unconventional. Willing to use violence. Angry.” Reitter looked up. “Who is Clara Hess to you?” Maggie was silent. “I asked the guard about her. She was a Nazi. An opera star in Germany.”
“I told you, I met Clara Hess through my work with SOE,” Maggie said.
“Is that all?”
Maggie leaned forward and clasped her hands. If you give him something, he may give you more. “Clara Hess…is my mother.” She finally said the words aloud. “She’s a Nazi and she was captured in 1941.”
Maggie sensed Reitter’s pleasure in this revelation—or maybe it was her pain in revealing it.
“Where is she now?”
“She may have died in a prison fire. She may have escaped. I honestly don’t know.” Maggie folded her arms. “How is your mother saving you, Nicholas?”
“She’s trying to outdo me,” he snarled. “To one-up me. To save my life by stealing my legacy.” He spat on the floor. “And she’s taking a man’s job and murdering men.”
Maggie went cold with shock and her mouth opened. “Your mother is Jenny Greenteeth?”
“Jenny.” He laughed, once, bitterly.
The trained part of her brain screamed, Keep him talking! “Why is your mother trying to outdo you, Nicholas? Why would she do that? How does it save you?”
He resumed his pacing, circling the chair in the middle of the floor. “She wants to give me an out—if I give her up, I can use the information to get a stay in my execution—maybe even turn it into a life sentence.”
“And why haven’t you given her up? Surely you want to live?”
“But don’t you see?” His voice sounded ripped from his throat. “Then she wins. She’s the bigger killer, the most notorious killer. The story becomes all about how she saved me. My legacy, my mythos—all gone.” He lifted his head. “After…everything that’s happened, I won’t give her the goddamned satisfaction.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don’t know. And that’s the truth.” Reitter echoed Maggie’s words back to her.
Outside, a bird fluttered down to the windowsill, to an egg-filled nest. “Your mother…” Maggie’s mind flashed back to the letters she’d seen, all the Bible verses, with scratchy, spidery handwriting and so many misspellings…She remembered something Peter had said on their walk: You could break codes, you have the mind for it.
“Guard!” she called.
“Major Hope?”
“We’re done,” she told Reitter as she turned away.
“Wait!” he called after her. But she ignored him, flying down the stairs, breathless as she arrived at Colonel MacRae’s office.
“The letters,” she said, panting. He looked up from his paperwork with a shocked expression, mouth open. “Sir.” She drew a deep breath. “The letters,” she repeated. “From Reitter’s mother. I need to see them now.”
* * *
—
After bidding his mother goodbye, Milo went downstairs to Nicolette’s flat. He had been told to arrive early, to process his new identity papers and receive his vaccinations. He had been instructed to bring ten photographs for the false passports and papers: five full face and five profile. He was also asked to pack his valuables in two suitcases. And carry the fee, in cash. And then he would wait until nightfall to make his departure.
The record player was spinning, “Begin the Beguine” playing. He sat on the sofa in Nicolette’s living room, waiting for her to prepare the inoculations. “You know—I can’t wait to start a new life in Argentina,” he told her.
Nicolette filled the syringe and nodded. “And why’s that?”
Milo looked over to the phonograph; Artie Shaw’s clarinet sounded bright and reedy. “I read Argentina welcomes immigrants. The people of Buenos Aires called themselves porteños—the people of the port. That will be me! And while I’ll miss my mother, I’m hoping once I get established there, I can bring her over, too. She hasn’t been the same since my father was taken…”
Nicolette made sure there were no bubbles.
“I know she couldn’t take it if I were captured and sent up to Scotland, too—and she’s already been through so much—”
“Shhhh…” The nurse tested the syringe, and a few drops of liquid erupted into the air, catching the lamplight.
“And then when I got yet another white feather…I mean, yes, I’m a conscientious objector, but they laughed—they laughed at me…”
“Here we go!” Nicolette said brightly as she approached, needle in hand. “Just roll up your shirtsleeve for me, that’s a good boy.”
Milo did as he was told. Moments after the needle punctured his skin, he felt a soft, warm fog descend. The record began to skip, the trumpets and trombones repeating themselves in an endless cycle.
He was dimly conscious as Nicolette dragged him to the kitchen and his body slid down the metal slide. He heard the sound of his body landing with a thump on the cellar’s cold dirt floor, but didn’t feel it. Oddly enough, he could still smell: mold and mildew, rotting vegetables, rat droppings, and the unmistakable tang of blood. From his position on the floor, he looked up. There was a naked lightbulb draped in spiderwebs.
Upstairs, there was a knock at the door. Milo could hear Nicolette’s footsteps walking away from the cellar door and then the distant sound of voices. “My daughter…Her leg is broken…You must come…” he made out as he swam in and
out of consciousness.
He heard the sound of Nicolette’s footsteps grow louder as she returned and then a whisper down the stairs. “I’ll deal with you later.”
The locks clicked shut and he was left alone in the darkness.
* * *
—
Sitting in the Colonel’s office with a pencil, a pad of paper, and a King James Bible, Maggie read over the letters. “Why didn’t I see this before?” she muttered. In the long lists of Bible verses, there were misspellings. Not frequent enough to draw attention, not even all that obvious in the spidery handwriting. But there, nonetheless.
And within the misspellings were omitted letters. And so:
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalms 51:5
And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Ari[s]e, and t[a]ke the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word: for Herod will see[k] the young child to destroy him. Matthew 2:13
Can a woman forget her suc[k]ing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may fo[r]get, yet will I not forget thee. Isa[i]ah 49:15
And his mother said unto him, Upon me be thy curse, my son: only obey my voice, and go [f]etch me them. Genesis 27:13
Then she said, I desire one small petition of thee; [I] pray thee, say me not nay. And the king said unto her, Ask on, my mother: for I will not say thee nay. 1 Kings 2:20
Moreover his mother made him a little coat, and brought it to him from year to year, when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sa[c]rifice. 1 Samu[e]l 2:19
My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy [m]other: Prov[e]rbs 1:8
And Elijah took the child, and brought him down out of the [c]hamber into the house, and delivered him unto his mother: and Elij[a]h said, See, thy son liveth. 1 Kings 17:23